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Small towns, social networks, and communicating

December 28, 2008 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Blogging, Business Networking, Communities, Social Networking 

During this time between Christmas and the new year, I’m doing a lot of thinking about what I plan to accomplish in 2009.

I am narrowing my focus and will be concentrating on just two areas: 1. affiliate marketing and 2. promoting businesses in Murphy, NC.

That means I will stop doing many of the things I’ve been doing. I’ll stop blogging on a lot of different topics and I’ll close down blogs and websites in January that are not related to my two primary areas of interest.

It also means that I’m going to be much more active in my community than I’ve been able to be for the last several years – both online and offline. Yes, that means that I’m actually going to leave my cave and talk to real people in the real world, again.

I really love living near Murphy, NC. I love the people, the small town atmosphere, the scenery, and being away from the big cities.

I don’t like how hard it can be to meet new people and to earn a living here. Sometimes, I think the two go hand in hand. In order to earn a living, perhaps new people in our area need a way to tap into the changing social networks and to make friends with people who know where the jobs are and can hire them.

Today, I was reading an interesting article at SocialMediaToday.com, How Small Towns are Social Networks, and it sparked some ideas I wanted to share with the author.

I agree with her observation that small towns are social networks and the photo of the bulletin board with all the business cards reminds me of several similar boards in Murphy.

I was wondering how one can best combine the offline networks of bulletin boards and newspapers with the online networks of Twitter, Facebook, and local portals and forums.

If the businesses are mostly promoting offline and the potential customers and employees are increasingly going online, how do we combine these networks so that it is easy to connect and to get to know each other?

Maybe I’m a bit uncommon as compared to most of the people here in western North Carolina. Instead of reaching for the yellow pages to find a phone number, I search on Google. Only if I can’t find what I’m looking for online would I consider going offline.

Yet, I believe most of the people in this area approach this type of information gathering first from the offline world, and many of them never go online for local searching.

I don’t have any data to back this up, it’s just a feeling from having talked to people.

With the price of offline advertising going up and online advertising going down, how long will it be before the businesses bring most of their marketing activities online?

How long will it be before the residents of Cherokee County take their local information gathering activities online, primarily?

How can I position myself and my services to help put these two groups together so we can all benefit?

As I said, I had some ideas I wanted to share with the author of the blog I was reading, so I was ready to comment and saw the following: “To Comment on this post, you must first register. Click here”

Sigh…

I really had something I wanted to say, so I registered, something I am doing much less of now than I used to do.

Over an hour later, I’m still waiting for the authentication email so I can post my comment, and you know what? I’ve lost interest. Even if I get the email now, I won’t bother activating my account just to post a comment.

Yes, I was a hot prospect then, but I’ve gone completely cold, now.

I even clicked on the link to the original post, but it, too, requires registration. That link takes me to Reddit, and that’s not what I’m looking for. I want a way to contact her directly.

Wait a second, that’s not accurate. Over an hour ago, I wanted a way to contact her directly and carry on the conversation. Now, not so much.

No more. I’m no longer interested.

I think back to just a few months ago when I changed my primary blog to this one with the main goal of making it easier for my friends and visitors to join in the conversations by commenting. It is working out very well, and I’m making friends with fellow bloggers around the world.

I would have enjoyed exchanging ideas with the author of the article I mentioned, but I can’t even see her profile without registering.

To top it off, there are links to the Twitter profiles of three people in the article who are referenced only indirectly, but there is no link to her Twitter profile that I can see. I did a search on Google, and I think I found her Twitter profile, but the photo is different and I’m not sure it’s her.

So, while she makes some good points about social networking, the way I found her has been time-consuming and frustrating.

It turns out that I followed the URL on her Twitter profile to her website and confirmed that she was the author of the article. To her credit, her own blog has links to her email address, Twitter profile, and Skype accounts. Not only that, but the article makes it easy to comment and she even uses CommentLuv. See it here: How Small Towns are Social Networks

Had I found the article on her actual blog instead of a syndicated version of it on SocialMediaToday.com, I would have been much more likely to have joined in the conversation and I would not have felt so frustrated trying to find a way to communicate with her.

Now, I’ve opened up at least one door by following her on Twitter.

Perhaps I’ll even find the motivation to share my thoughts with her on her blog – if I can remember what they were.

In the long run, what will I remember about this experience? Will it be her insights on local networking or will it be the frustration of trying to communicate?

So, how does this apply to affiliate marketing?

What are you doing to make it easy to establish conversations with your visitors? How well is it working?

Maybe you are doing a good job of conversing on your blog, but what happens when your content is syndicated elsewhere? Are roadblocks thrown up needlessly? Why? What can you do about them?

If you recommend a product or service as an affiliate, do you make it easy for prospects to contact you to gather further information or to clarify any points you’ve made?

Do you respond to those requests in a timely manner? Do you provide additional information? Do you answer the specific questions that are asked?

In my opinion, the main point of having a blog is to start a conversation.

What are you doing to make it easier for your reader to respond to you?

What are you doing to make it more difficult?

Are you even aware of things that may make it more difficult?

Truly, I don’t want to pick on her, because she’s doing the right things on her own blog. Still, I found her article on another site that is syndicating her content, and finding a way to join in the conversation was difficult and time-consuming.

Is that her fault, or is it the fault of the site that syndicated her article?

I don’t see it as her fault, at all. It seems to me to be the unintended consequences of social networking extending our reach to other sites that may not make it so easy to participate as our own sites do.

In the long run, it will probably be worth an hour of frustration, because I found someone who shares some of the same interests I do. Now that I’ve found her blog, and just now subscribed to it, I’ll look forward to reading what she has to say, and it will be easy, then, to join in the conversation, should I want.

I’m going to take a short break and see if I can work up the enthusiasm I originally had to join her conversation, now that I’ve found it.

Act on your dream!

JD

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14 Comments on Small towns, social networks, and communicating

  1. Joan Adams on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 1:44 pm

    2. John, I am spending the week reviewing my on line efforts too, and you certainly have some valid points here. For one thing, I am going to settle on 1 or 2 important blogs and let the rest go.

    As to the conversational approach, I think that is the way of the future – actual relationships on line. And leaving websites open for comments and conversation. Even on my Squidoo lens, I leave the comments open to everyone – not just Squidoo members. That one act has resulted in some wonderful comments and conversations from readers who are not Squidoo folks (yet!).

    Be sure to check out Ohme’s lenses on Pendleton again. She is doing a great job promoting Pendleton merchants on a site all their own.
    http://www.squidoo.com/pendleton-business
    Today she is busily making a video in the local coffee shop – complete with local pianist entertaining the guests!

  2. WordFrame Support on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 5:17 pm

    3. Hello John,

    WordFrame Support team was alerted by SocialMediaToday that the socialmediatoday.com site has an issue with your registration. We checked on their site and we can see your registration. The system has sent you the required account confirmation letter on Dec 28, 11:28 AM CET. Please check your spam filter or spam folder. The SMT admin e-mail address which sent the letter is [email address removed].

    We can resend this activation letter or we can activate your account manually. Please send us a note about it. We apologize for the issue, sometimes the spam filters give us a hard time regarding our administrative letters sent out from our systems.

    regards
    WordFrame Support team
    [email address removed]

    Note: edited by John Dilbeck to remove email addresses

  3. John Dilbeck on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 8:51 pm

    4. Good evening, Joan.

    I can certainly agree with focusing on fewer blogs. One thing you may want to consider is how to stop using a blog.

    One of my first blogs was on Blogger and had my name as the subdomain. When I started testing WordPress blogs, I closed that blog on Blogger.

    The trouble is, someone else grabbed it and is promoting stuff using my name at the top of the page. I would not promote those items.

    So, what I should have done was kept that blog and posted one last item to it with a link to my new blog, but I didn’t know that at the time.

    I’m sure I’m still sending traffic to that old blog from some of my older sites. I found one blog that linked to it, just today.

    I don’t know if there is anything I can do to get Blogger to stop this person from using my name, but it’s something I need to look into.

    So, think carefully if you plan to stop using free websites and blogs. If you’ve been building traffic, try to use it to your advantage and not some interloper’s. At the least, maybe link to your lenses.

    I agree 100% with you on using our online presences as ways to open communications and to make discussions easier, whether it be comments on blogs, duels and comments on Squidoo, managing a forum, or using social networking tools such as Twitter and the others.

    Twitter is an easy-to-use and deceptively simple tool. Most people don’t realize how well it is indexed by Google.

    For example, I just now searched for “pendleton sc twitter” (without the quotes) and found several links to Nancy’s tweets and Squidoo lenses – on page one of the search results just from using free tools!

    Even searching for just “pendleton sc” found your Pendleton lens on page 1 of the results and it was higher than the commercial behemoths such as discoverourtown.com and epodunk.com.

    I was playing with some more searches and found this link:

    Twitter users in Murphy, NC USA

    I need to get some more people active here.

    Nancy is the only one listed for:

    Twitter users in Pendleton SC

    This makes me wonder if there are any tools specifically designed to track Twitter users by location. Do you know of any?

    I just searched for Twitter tools for this and found Twitterlocal.net, but it’s not that accurate unless someone filled in their location properly in their Twitter profile.

    I’ll keep looking and get back on the subject.

    That’s a good idea about keeping Squidoo lens comments open to everyone instead of just lensmasters. Do you have a problem with spam? Do you moderate all your comments?

    I just tried loading the Pendleton Business lens. So far, I’ve been unable to load the entire lens. Those of us who are still on dial-up often have this problem with Squidoo lenses that are long and have lots of photos and/or videos.

    I was able to load enough of it a few days ago to leave a comment and rate it.

    Now that most of us dialup users are in the minority, it may not be as important as it once was, but still may be a consideration for those of us who live in rural areas where broadband is not always available.

    Thanks for your comments, Joan. I’ll try to stay more on-topic in my future replies.

    ;)

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  4. John Dilbeck on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 9:04 pm

    5. Good evening, WordFrame Support.

    I appreciate your taking the time to contact me about this issue with my registration on SocialMediaToday and I sent you an email asking you to manually activate my account.

    I don’t know why I didn’t get the email. I have gmail.com whitelisted.

    (Sometimes I’m surprised that email is as reliable as it is, but there’s no need to get off-topic here.)

    Thank you for your help.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  5. Dennis Edell on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 10:06 pm

    6. Noooooo don’t leave the cave!! That’s THEIR world.

    Teasing of course, and I wish you the best of luck in your new adventures!

    I did get myself nicely focused in the latter half of this year and hope to continue to grow exponentially from here on. :)

    Dennis Edell´s last blog post..Twitter for You and I in ‘09 – The Post You’ve Been Waiting For ;)

  6. John Dilbeck on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 10:14 pm

    7. Good evening, Dennis.

    I’ll be vewy, vewy caweful when I leave the cave!

    ;)

    You know, focus is one of the most important things in really building a business. I haven’t appreciated that as much as I should have.

    Maybe both of us will grow exponentially in 2009.

    (I could do that by eating a dozen cheeseburgers every day, but I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about!)

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  7. Dennis Edell on Tue, 30th Dec 2008 4:50 am

    8. Nah, I’ve got that down to a science. LOL

    Dennis Edell´s last blog post..Twitter for You and I in ‘09 – The Post You’ve Been Waiting For ;)

  8. Nancy Hellams aka Ohme on Tue, 30th Dec 2008 7:41 am

    9. Hi John,
    I enjoyed reading your post and am excited about your promotion of Murphy, NC. I am going to read the article you referenced, as well.

    I do apologize about my lenses taking you so long to download. Squidoo encourages pictures and since I strive for good rankings, I tend to use a lot of them. Hey, you could come off that mountain and sit on the square in Pendleton, SC which is all WiFi.lol Maybe that is something that you could get going in Murphy.

    Thanks again for all your help.

    Nancy Hellams aka Ohme´s last blog post..South Carolina Group Top Lenses added

  9. John Dilbeck on Tue, 30th Dec 2008 11:08 am

    10. Good morning, Nancy.

    Welcome to our discussions!

    There’s no need to apologize. I’m sure your lenses load quickly enough for anyone on broadband.

    I’m only three miles from the nearest broadband, but don’t expect it to be available here any time soon.

    I have a half-dozen computers and not a single one of them is a laptop. I’m going to have to remedy that in 2009. I could take a laptop to the library in Murphy and use their free WiFi, and several businesses offer it, too.

    I’m still happy having local dial-up. It wasn’t too many years ago that I was paying over $200 per month in long distance charges to dial in to Asheville to get an Internet connection.

    On the other hand, my daughter lives about four miles from me (as the crow flies, across the lake), and she has a high-speed fiber connection that can show TV with no pauses.

    In these rural areas, a few miles can make a very big difference.

    The main reason I mentioned how long it takes to load the lens is because I’m sensitive to how long someone has to wait when they go to a site.

    Since I’m going to be doing something similar to what you’re doing in Pendleton, I’m trying to think of a way to segment businesses into different lenses so each will load quickly.

    I still don’t have a solution on how to do that, exactly, so I guess I’ll be experimenting with it next year.

    I’m not trying to pick on you.

    Thanks for joining us, Nancy.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  10. Mitch on Thu, 1st Jan 2009 8:50 pm

    11. Hi John,

    Man, you went in two different directions with this post. Let’s tackle the second one first. As you know, I won’t bother with any site anymore that requires that I have to sign in or register. I just don’t have the time nor the inclination to deal with it. I know there are a lot of people who believe that having folks register for their site helps keep down spam; it’s not true, and more importantly, it’s irritating. Not quite as irritating as those stupid popup windows, but almost as bad.

    On your first topic, I think small towns offer a better chance to network than large ones do. I belong to the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce and the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, a suburb of Syracuse. I’ve met way more people through the Syracuse Chamber, but I know very few of them, whereas through the Liverpool Chamber the numbers are smaller, but I know more of them better, and happen to see more of them on a regular basis since this is where I live. If I offered the type of services that were more conducive to local business I’d be living large. So yes, working the local market could work great for you.

    Course, if I get to make the acquisition I’m hoping for later this month,… ;-)

    Mitch´s last blog post..Page Rank & SEO – A Short Blogging Research Project

  11. mark lazen on Fri, 2nd Jan 2009 12:34 pm

    12. John–can you confirm for me that the registration confirmation emails were not in your spam folder?

    mark lazen´s last blog post..Five tips for a healthier social network: New Scientist on “social contagion”

  12. John Dilbeck on Fri, 2nd Jan 2009 6:45 pm

    13. Good afternoon, Mark.

    Welcome to our discussion.

    Yes, I can confirm that your confirmation emails were not in my spam folder. I did not receive it/them. I don’t know if you sent more than one.

    However, I did receive the email with the subject, Social Media Today Account Information, on December 29.

    All the best,

    JD

  13. John Dilbeck on Fri, 2nd Jan 2009 7:08 pm

    14. Good evening, Mitch.

    I think you may be right about small towns offering a better chance to network than larger ones.

    In a large city, to network effectively, I think you need to identify a particular segment of people with whom to network.

    In a small town like Murphy, the entire town is already a small segment, and local small business owners and managers is a very reasonable sized group.

    It still feels strange to be able to leave home for more than a couple of hours and talk to people, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it in a few weeks.

    I hope you’re right about working the local market. After the last few months, I could really use something working great for me.

    You know you’re dangling the bait right in front of my mouth when you talk about making an acquisition, don’t you?

    Of course, you do.

    You’ve piqued my interest; I’m looking forward to learning about what you’re up to.

    ;)

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  14. Mitch on Sat, 3rd Jan 2009 1:46 am

    15. I’ll make sure you’re one of the first to know, if I can pull it off. :-D

    Mitch´s last blog post..Page Rank & SEO – A Short Blogging Research Project

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